Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken G
The subject and the object do not coincide when psychology is being a science, i.e., when a scientist is learning about a brain, that scientist is not the brain being studied (introspection is a special component of cognitive study and is largely discounted as science, though is probably worth its own consideration).
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Although that is certainly a response, I have to say that I find it rather weak.
Psychology is a science when psychologists study the brain -- don't we call
that neuroscience?
Introspection is "largely discounted as science"? Well, I guess it's not a science in itself, but psychologists have certainly used introspection as form of gathering data in their discipline.
I really don't see why the nature of the method should make any difference. Psychology, by definition, is the study of the human mind (except for hardcore behaviourists). Every psychologist is human and has a mind, so they will never be able to separate their 'object' from themselves. According to you, that should doom psychology's prospect of being a science...
It gets even more interesting when we move on to other human sciences. How about sociology? Here, the 'object' isn't even remotely a physical thing, like a brain. It's a society, or a social group. How can any sociologist extract himself from his society in order to study it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken G
I frankly don't know, but what difference would it make? The scientific method was not handed to us by Galileo like the Ten Commandments, it was something we created based in part on his breakthroughs.
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You were the one who complained that I wasn't using 'standard' definitions!
I suspect that Galileo never even mentioned any subject-object dichotomy. I don't think he ever needed such a thing to define the scientific method. I don't think we do, either.